Free Markets (4) - Evil

The market system is made up of a great number of different markets, ranging from flea makers to shopping malls to futures markets. Each of these is an information system that allows people to buy and sell different types of good and services. Sales only occur when both the buyer and the seller are made better off. All market transactions make the people involved better off, and those not involved not any worse off. A market does much good and no harm.

A market can be overcome by evil. One way is for a market to start selling things that are evil. One example is the slave trade. Most people would agree that this was a terrible evil. However, a market for slaves did not develop, because markets are immoral. A slave market could only function if there were people willing to buy and others willing to sell humans and perhaps others willing to enslave humans. These people did the evil, not the market. They created a market in evil, which is the worst evil.